Marketing Weasels Who Write Code
 When I flick through a geeky book I'm more likely to browse the code snippets than the text. Unfortunately, marketing weasels are aware of this. And hence, you see a lot of dumb ads that use Source Code to hook you in. The amusing thing, for me anyway is that the code they use is always broken in some way. Here's the code from a current microsoft ad i saw here: Public Function ProjectCompletionTime() as String
If DevTool <> "Visual Studio 2005" Then
return "Sorry, I'm going to have to cancel tonight"
Else If DevTool = "Visual Studio 2005" Then
return "I'll meet you for dinner at 7pm"
End if
End Function
Okay -- this is probably one of the better pieces of code i've seen in advertising. But there's still about five things wrong with it. (Continues...)
Firstly -- you'd expect a function called 'ProjectCompletionTime' to return a DateTime. When you inspect the code you find that what it actually returns is a statement about your availability tonight. I'd recommend the function be renamed to 'AvailabilityTonight' -- or 'ExcuseForTheWife'
Secondly, the redundant logic is plain annoying. A C# rendering of this same logic would return the error that 'not all code paths return a value'
Personally, I'd use a 'guard clause' technique to reduce the nesting. I like guard clauses. YMMV.
Public Function ExcuseForTheWife() as String
If DevTool <> "Visual Studio 2005" Then
return "Sorry, I'm going to have to cancel tonight"
End if
return "I'll meet you for dinner at 7pm. You're paying. I blew all my money on Microsoft Tools."
End Function
Also, I wonder where this 'DevTool' variable is declared? And as a variable, I'd prefer to see it in camel case.
Strange too that it's just a string. You'd expect it to be an object, never mind. Let's pass it in as a parameter:
Public Function ExcuseForTheWife(devTool as String) as String
If devTool <> "Visual Studio 2005" Then
return "Sorry, I'm going to have to cancel tonight"
End if
return "I'll meet you for dinner at 7pm. You're paying. I blew all my money on Microsoft Tools."
End Function
Now the real thing that annoys me here is that they're clearly not using Visual Studio as their code editor.
The code does not have syntax highlighting! And the lower case 'as' and 'return' are also a dead give away.
I pasted my snippet into Visual Studio, and copied it back out using 'CopySourceAsHtml' (the excellent plug in from Colin Coller at JtLeigh.com). (I had to apply extra styles to give it a 2005 look... the plug in i have only works in 2003). Here's the result:
Public Function ExcuseForTheWife(ByVal devTool As String) As String
If devTool <> "Visual Studio 2005" Then
Return "Sorry, I'm going to have to cancel tonight"
End If
Return "I'll meet you for dinner at 7pm. You're paying. I blew all my money on Microsoft Tools."
End Function
Finally -- brevity is wit etc. While I do love VB, I think C# would be punchier and less wordy for the ad:
public string ExcuseForTheWife(string devTool) {
if (devTool == "Visual Studio 2005") {
return "Meet you at 7 PM!";
}
return "Can't make it tonight. Still fixing broken code.";
}
'jerry' on Thu, 25 May 2006 00:39:00 GMT, sez: there are so many version of visual studio that this you need a CASE statement.
Select case devTool
case "Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite"
return "I'll be late because I have to work a second job to afford the license"
case "Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects"
return "it's not my job to write code. I'm too busy envisioning the solution to tonight's dinner"
case "Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers"
return "I'll be late because I haven't complied with the checkin policy"
case "Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers"
return "I'm a tester. They don't let me out of my cage for meals."
case "Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition"
return "I'll be late because i can't run built in unit tests"
Case "Visual Studio Express"
return "I'll be on time because I'm an unemployed hobbyist programmers, but you'll have to pay for dinner cause I'm broke"
Case string.Empty
return "I'll be late because I can't decide which version of Visual Studio to buy."
...
insert your own insults here ;*)
...
J
'David Stone' on Thu, 25 May 2006 00:57:26 GMT, sez: CopySourceAsHTML for VS 2005:
http://www.avocadosoftware.com/csblogs/dredge/archive/2006/01/10/544.aspx :)
'lb' on Thu, 25 May 2006 00:59:53 GMT, sez: Thanks David! Brilliant!
cheers Jerry: looks like you put even more thought into this than me... and i thought *I* was a geek...
'Hermann Klinke' on Thu, 25 May 2006 18:18:33 GMT, sez: I hope you have sent the corrected version to Microsoft to really embarrass the guys that made it. I demand that they get fired immidiately for not even using VS to create this code. It's so hypocritical...
'Jason Looney' on Fri, 26 May 2006 19:12:31 GMT, sez: There's a chicken and egg problem here. Really, you need to use conditional compilation. Right? (This could get trippy...)
Side note: Why am I the only left who believes methods should have only one return statement? What happened to that rule? Am I dating myself here? And if so, should I ask myself to marry myself? (Hmm, more conditional compilation... )
'lb' on Sat, 27 May 2006 01:22:51 GMT, sez: >methods should have only one
>return statement?
i was taught that way at uni, and i believed that for a long time too. then someone showed me a bunch of examples of using guard clauses, and using finally statements when one exit point is needed, and i haven't looked back.
my favourite advantage to 'guard clauses' is that they're the easiest way to avoid deeply nested 'if' statements.
but i'm not religious about it either. if a customer is going to end up owning the code and they insist on 'one return per function' then i'll fall into line.
lb
'Rob Williams' on Sat, 27 May 2006 14:28:52 GMT, sez: Hoorah, a happy method for everybody :)
public string ExcuseForTheWife(string devTool) {
return (devTool == "Visual Studio 2005") ? "Meet you at 7 PM!" : "Can't make it tonight. Still fixing broken code.";
}
'Jason Hanford-Smith' on Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:08:57 GMT, sez: In answer to Rob's brilliant one-liner (not including the method-name, etc):
Firstly, what's with the C++ style brackets?
Second, surely we should all be using the Object model:
public string ExcuseForTheWife(string devTool)
{
return (devTool.Equals("Visual Studio 2005") ? "Meet you at 7 PM!" : "Can't make it tonight. Still fixing broken code.";
}
'Jason Hanford-Smith' on Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:09:49 GMT, sez: And then of course I miss a closing bracket!
public string ExcuseForTheWife(string devTool)
{
return (devTool.Equals("Visual Studio 2005")) ? "Meet you at 7 PM!" : "Can't make it tonight. Still fixing broken code.";
}
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